


force ghosts

by Trillian_Astra



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Character Study, Gen, character piece
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-24
Updated: 2015-12-24
Packaged: 2018-05-09 01:32:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 786
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5520431
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trillian_Astra/pseuds/Trillian_Astra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kylo Ren has wanted to speak with Darth Vader's ghost ever since he learned that Force ghosts were possible, but has never been granted the opportunity.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, a young scavenger named Rey finds companionship with a disembodied voice that calls itself Ani.</p>
<p>[character piece - essentially Anakin and his grandkids]</p>
            </blockquote>





	force ghosts

“Do you know what this is?” Supreme Leader Snoke asks, pointing out a battered black object to the boy at his side.

Ben studied it. It looked like a helmet – a badly damaged helmet, that looked like it had almost been torn in two. “An old helmet?”

“This is your legacy, boy,” Snoke said. “Did your parents never tell you about your grandfather?”

“They wouldn’t. They said I wasn’t old enough.”

Snoke let out a brief, barking sort of laugh, and went on to tell Ben the story of Darth Vader.

 

**

 

Rey had been very small when the voice first showed up. Her family had just left her, and she had cried for them for hours afterwards, until a voice – soft but insistent – had told her _Hush_ and _Tears will not help you_.

She wiped the tears from her face with the corner of her blanket, and pulled herself up straighter.

The voice didn’t say anything else for a long time, but she carried those few words inside her like a talisman.

 

**

 

Ben knelt in front of the battered helmet, looking at it for a long time.

“I wish I could talk to you, grandfather. I wish mother had told me about you. There are so many things I’d like to ask you… Supreme Leader Snoke says that sometimes the echoes of the dead can be heard through the Force.”

“If… if you can… please speak to me, grandfather…”

 

**

 

_Above you. Pull out the cluster of wires, there’s a power coil behind them._

Rey glanced up, saw the wires where the voice said they were. “Are the wires live?”

_No._

“Thanks,” she muttered as she yanked the wires away, before carefully removing the power coil. “Almost fully charged… should get a good price for that. Maybe a whole ration…”

She hadn’t really considered why the voice talked to her, or where it came from. It was just a voice that spoke to her sometimes, to warn her or to point out a particularly valuable piece of scrap. That evening, as she sat on the sand and ate her meagre meal, she said out loud, “Are you there?”

_I’m always here_.

“Who are you?”

_My mother called me Ani._

“Ani? That’s your name?”

_One of my names. I have had several._

“Well, nice to meet you. I’m Rey.”

_I know._

She laughed. “Yeah, I suppose you do. Why do you talk to me? What are you, even?”

_The word that fits best is ‘ghost’. And I talk to you because you seem to need company._

 

**

 

Ben stood in front of his grandfather’s helmet, fidgeting in his new robes.

“I passed the trials, grandfather. I’m one of the Knights of Ren. I have… I have a new name now. I’ll be called Kylo Ren now. The Supreme Leader says that he’s proud of me, that I’ll be his right hand.”

He looked down at the shining new helmet in his hands. “I wish I could talk to you properly, grandfather. I hope you’re proud of me.”

The battered helmet of Darth Vader stared at him with lifeless eyes.

 

**

 

“Do you know where my family is, Ani?” Rey asked.

_There are things I cannot see. They are… hidden._

“Oh. I thought you might be able to.”

_I would if I were able._

“Did you have any children when you were alive?”

_Two. But they were raised by others. It would not have been my choice._

“Oh.”

_You will find your family, Rey. You must have faith._

 

**

 

“I’ll do it, grandfather,” the young man known as Kylo Ren said. “I will finish what you started.”

He looked up at the battered helmet. He searched and searched, listening for any sense that his grandfather’s spirit was attempting to contact him.

He heard nothing.

“I’ll finish what you started,” he repeated. If he completed his mission, did as the Supreme Leader said, then his grandfather would speak to him.

Kylo Ren held onto that belief. He had to. He must.

 

**

 

Even when she’d been with the Resistance for a few weeks, Rey couldn’t shake the feeling that she needed to go back to Jakku.

“Why, though?” Poe Dameron asked her, while they were sitting with Finn in the medbay one day.

“I can’t explain, it’s just… I don’t know, it’s just this feeling I have.”

She didn’t want to say that she had to go back because Ani wouldn’t know where she was. She worried that if she told anyone else about the disembodied voice that spoke to her on a regular basis, they’d think she was crazy.

So she sat at Finn’s bedside, watched him sleep, and wondered what she was going to do.

Then she heard it.

_I’m here, Rey._

 


End file.
